From where I sit, stoner rock charm is a very peculiar and particular kind of charm, and Riff Fist have all the earmarks. A trio of lugs from Down Under, they’re armed with inside jokes, guitar-bass-drums and steady Fu Manchu, Clutch and Kyuss influences, a cartoon Clint Eastwood on their cover (by Brian Koshak) and a four-track debut EP of riff-led shenanigans that they’ve decided to call — just in case you didn’t get the point from the fact that they’re called Riff Fist — Fistful of Riffs. Ambitious it is not.

But really, if have any experience listening to stoner rock whatsoever and you go into listening to a band called Riff Fist who have a release called Fistful of Riffs thinking you’re going to wind up with innovation, it’s your own fault. That’s not what Riff Fist are about. They’re about riffs, booze, and — again, the way I see it — charm. I don’t listen to “Spud King” with any kind of expectation for something landmark that will change my life forever. I listen hoping I’m going to hear a dude singing about being king of the potatoes, and thankfully, that’s just what I get from Riff Fist, and if that’s not enough to let you know how seriously Cozza, Grondo and Casey don’t take themselves, between calling out Fu Manchu in third track “Riff Stew” and the picture of one of the band members on a riding a pony under the CD tray in the digipak with the caption “It’s a Satanic Pony Thing… You Wouldn’t Understand” should fill in any blanks that might be left. Accordingly, they close out the EP with the eight-minute jam “Ride the Pony.”

Given all that and the fact that though it’s pretty raw vocally, the Melbourne three-piece’s first outing nonetheless comes with clean tones and some decent-sounding low end punch, I’m more than happy to get down with the silliness on offer. “Spud King” has some blues in its leads and “Fingerless Ben” is memorable for its strangeness as much as its chorus, but at least if Riff Fist are having a good time, they’re inviting you to have one too. I don’t know if the formative methods they’re showing here would pay off for them over the course of a full-length without something to sonically change it up — “Ride the Pony” branches out instrumentally some as it plays out, but is still very stoner rock and righteously, unashamedly so in this context — but as it is, what seems like the cream of their initial batch of songs since forming in 2011 appeals to the goofball in me. Wherever they go from here, it’s still fun.

And figuring it might be good times every now and again to have “Spud King” or “Ride the Pony” pop up in the playlist, I added Riff Fist‘s Fistful of Riffs to The Obelisk Radio. As standard practice seems to go for self-releasing bands, they’ve got the EP available on their Bandcamp too for CD and/or digital purchase, so here’s the stream of that as well if you’d like an immediate sampling:

Riff Fist, Fistful of Riffs (2013)

Riff Fist on Thee Facebooks

Riff Fist on Bandcamp